On duty today were two guards, which worked in our favour.� Sometimes there were more, but today they appeared short staffed.� Hopefully this meant that they were also overwhelmed and ready to go home.� On the other hand, they could be wet, tired and grumpy.
Of the two guards, one was human, sporting a non-regulation flat hat that was doing nothing to stop the rain and a ridiculous moustache that was looking very wet and sorry for itself.
My heart sank when I saw that the other guard was Anthro and worse he was a Jackalman.
Father Terry was fond of explaining to us that we are all children of God and that includes the Anthro community.� He had texts with tales of Anthro creatures � an intelligent hybrid of animals and humans.� Named somewhere along the line for Anthropomorphic animals � animals with human, or I suppose troll, elf gnome and so on, characteristics.� Many Anthro formed their own tribes or herds, their behaviours strongly influenced by their animal side.
Nobody knew where the Anthros came from any more than we know the history of the other races.� Some believe that we have common ancestry and there are other, stranger, theories.
Father Terry tells us that Anthros were around before most of the humanoid races.� One time he showed me one of his books with pictures of merfolk, minotaur, harpies and centaurs.� I asked him why these, in particular, had their own names whilst the majority of Anthros were simply called by the closest animal with a -man, -woman or -folk suffix.� For example, Rhinoman, Sharkgirl, Deerfolk or in this case: Jackalman.� He didn�t have an answer and I suppose in many ways it didn�t matter.
What was important right now was that there was a Jackalman on duty.� Whatever your opinion on race equality, its undeniable that any Anthro built on a predator or carnivore tended to be more aggressive than anyone else as well as possessing the strengths and senses associated with their animal side.� Jackalfolk, like the jackal animal, tended to be on the lookout for anything they perceived as weakness.� Their instincts pushed them to attack the young, sick, old or infirm.� They had a reputation for pushing and probing, looking to find easy prey.
I briefly considered that the Jackalman�s sense of smell may put him off spending any time around our stinking cart, but it wouldn�t be the cart or its contents he would be interested in.� My fear was that he would take Buster�s silence as a sign of weakness and start to goad him in an instinctive attempt to find out if Buster was a good target for bullying or worse. The Jackalman guard was cold, wet, hungry and tired, who knew what he might do.� I didn�t doubt that Buster could handle him in a fair fight, but this was not a bar brawl.� Losing a street fight would put a crimp in our plans and winning could attract more and more reinforcements from the ranks of the guard, in addition to drawing all sorts of unwelcome attention. Far better to avoid that scenario altogether.